


You Could Do Worse

by BryonNightshade



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Weiss suffers, background Bumblebee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28207548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BryonNightshade/pseuds/BryonNightshade
Summary: (AU, trope subversion.) Weiss expected some culture clash when she went to Beacon. She knew that less-civilized kingdoms wouldn’t share Atlas’ perfectly reasonable positions on matters like, say, soulmates.But that was no excuse for Ruby to be making *that* face at her.
Relationships: Ruby Rose & Weiss Schnee
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37





	You Could Do Worse

A gloved hand waved in Weiss Schnee's peripheral vision. "Weiss? Hey, Weiss?"

Weiss put her study materials down on her desk in the Team RWBY dorm. She closed her eyes, schooled her features, and prayed for patience. "Yes, Ruby?"

"So… we're besties now, so I thought…"

"I'm cutting you off there," said Weiss, turning to her newly-appointed team leader. Ruby Rose's hands, clad in red-on-black gloves, went behind her back as the younger girl became bashful under Weiss' attention. "We. Are not. Besties."

"But… you said you'd be the best teammate I ever had," Ruby objected sheepishly. "It hasn't even been a week since you said that. You still mean it, right?"

Weiss pursed her lips. The idea was taking some… getting used to. A _lot_ of getting used to, actually. Still, she could hardly go back on her word at this point. That was the sort of thing her father would do. That meant it was the sort of thing she must never do. "Yes," she affirmed. "I will be the best teammate. That doesn't make us best friends," she added, before Ruby could run away with her words.

Ruby winced, but rallied. "Well, we still have to learn about each other, right? If we're going to be a team, we have to know a few things about each other. That's the basis of teamwork."

She nodded frantically at her own words. Weiss wondered if the reaper was trying to convince herself as much as her audience.

"I don't see how that can help us more than studying," Weiss said, pointedly gesturing at her desk.

"It's much more efficient, actually," Ruby countered. "Each of us studying on our own means we each learn at our own rates. If we talk and grow as a team, we learn at the higher of our two rates. We don't learn the same stuff, but we learn more, you know?"

Weiss couldn't tell if that was brilliance or nonsense. "I… guess?" she hazarded.

"Great! So…" Ruby was practically vibrating from restrained excitement. Weiss recognized that Ruby had been holding herself back for a while on this point. "…can I see your arm?"

Weiss blinked. "Which arm?"

Ruby gave her a flabbergasted look. "The prosthetic arm, duh! How could you think I meant your boring old left arm?"

"It's not boring! Both of my arms are, in fact, splendid," Weiss shot back.

Ruby, seeing her mistake, retreated. "Oh, yeah, that came out wrong! I meant… well, it's just, I can see normal flesh and blood arms everywhere, but an arm like that…"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Just don't touch it," she said, and reached out with her right arm.

Ruby's silver eyes could hardly be wider. "Oh, wow," she breathed as she approached. "I've read about this model, but I've never seen one…"

"Never?" said Weiss, with a moment's frown. "Well, I guess that makes sense. It's only been out three months, and it is top-of-the-line."

Ruby didn't touch the arm, per Weiss' wishes, but her fingers hovered and traced over the cool blue surface, from the fingertips all the way to the interface at the elbow. "Tactile feedback, right?"

"Right, concentrated in the hand," Weiss explained. "That's where it's needed most, after all. And there aren't any temperature receptors, although Atlas scientists promise that those are being developed."

Ruby continued asking questions in that vein for some time, and Weiss gamely answered her. It struck Weiss, five minutes in, that Ruby was approaching this in a different way from her. Weiss knew about her arm as a matter of practical necessity. It was the responsible thing to do. Self-knowledge and self-possession? A Schnee had to have those things.

Ruby just seemed to dig tech. The affection in her voice was undeniable. And… effecting.

Eventually, Ruby backed up a step; Weiss let her arm return to her desk. "Thank you," Ruby said.

"You're quite welcome," Weiss replied gracefully. "Will that be all?"

"Well," said Ruby, bashful again, "maybe one more question, if that's alright?"

Weiss sighed, but gave an indulgent smile. "I've humored you this long, what's another few minutes?"

Ruby looked uncertain.

"That means yes."

"Oh! Right. I knew that." Ruby cleared her throat, unnecessarily. "Sorry if this seems too personal, but… how did it… happen?"

Weiss raised a hand and gestured for Ruby to elaborate.

"It," Ruby said again, pointing furtively at Weiss' right arm.

Weiss looked at it, as if to confirm for herself what Ruby was pointing at. Confirmation did not bring clarity. "I get replacement arms every year, as I grow," Weiss said. "Sort of a birthday present. And it means I always have the latest model."

Ruby squirmed. "That's super cool, and also not what I meant."

"Then speak more clearly, you dunce," chided Weiss.

"Whathappenedwhenyoulostyourarm?"

"Excuse me?"

Ruby was blushing furiously, but she gathered herself and spoke, if somewhat shakily. "Well, arms don't just fall off on their own, you know? Something must have… happened. I was just wondering if you'd tell me the story."

It was so absurd Weiss laughed.

"What?" said Ruby, clearly not expecting this response.

"Nothing 'happened'," Weiss said, mismatched hands making air quotes. "There's no 'story'. When I was six months old, my arm was amputated in the Schnee wing of Atlas Military Hospital. Standard procedure."

"'Standard procedure'?" Ruby said with visible horror, and Weiss only barely restrained another laugh. "Everyone in Atlas gets their arm lopped off?!"

"Not everyone," said Weiss scornfully. "Only the people who matter. If you're rich or powerful enough to be important, sure."

Ruby was blinking rapid-fire, as if trying to filter the incoming words.

"It's like this," Weiss said, making an effort to explain. "My house butler, Klein, never got his arm amputated. But that's because he's the butler, you see? He wasn't going to be anyone of consequence, and his parents knew that, so they didn't pay for the procedure. Prosthetics are expensive, after all. But I'm a Schnee. They had my operation scheduled before I was even born. Do you get it now?"

Ruby's shoulders were slumping and a truly pathetic look was emerging on her face. "But how will you know your soulmate?"

Weiss did laugh, this time. Souls on Remnant, it was said, were paired up. Each half of the pair bore a soulmark on their right forearm that emerged at an early age. Find the person with the matching mark, the saying went, and you find your forever partner, the person whose soul complements yours.

Weiss laughed at the notion—though in her own ears she heard how forced it sounded. "Soulmates? Who has time for that?"

The look of distress on Ruby's face was getting to Weiss.

"Stop that," Weiss demanded.

"I don't get it," said Ruby. Was she… starting to cry?

"Get a grip," snapped Weiss. "All this nonsense about finding the _one_ person you're _supposed_ to be with… it just gets in the way. There's no rhyme or reason to it, it's just some joke the universe plays on us."

"Then you just… never look for the person who completes you?" Ruby said. Her eyes were wet now, and her face so sorrowful Weiss' heartstrings were starting to twang.

Weiss didn't need that any more than a soulmate. She looked away. "The aristocracy of Atlas has no need for such things," she said, repeating words long drilled into her. "People ally with each other for advantage. Sometimes it's to cement a corporate alliance. Sometimes it's to produce an heir. Sometimes it's good politics. The last thing anyone needs is some soulmate blundering into all of that and messing everything up… or, worse, people wasting all their time looking for their soulmate, and missing the opportunities that pass right in front of them."

She raised her prosthetic arm in front of her and clenched it into a fist. "I'm glad my family did this to me. It lets me focus on the important things."

"I pity you."

Weiss' head whipped over to look at Ruby, whose words could not have surprised Weiss more. "What was that?!"

"Atlas sounds like a horrible place," Ruby said with venom that took Weiss aback. "It sounds like the people there are as cold and distant as Solitas."

"They're—" Weiss began. The denial died on her lips, unspoken. It had been reflexive, but also untrue. Weiss' mind shifted gears. "It's not just Atlas, there are similar social norms elsewhere. In Mistral, upper-class babies' arms are elaborately tattooed. The soulmarks are worked into the designs so no one can tell what the soulmark ever looked like. I think some earlier cultures used ritual scarring or branding to do the same thing."

"Then a lot of people are messed up," Ruby insisted. "That doesn't make them right!"

Weiss crossed her arms defiantly. "And what if the soulmark is wrong, hm?"

"What do you mean, 'wrong'?" Ruby demanded.

"What if it matches you up with someone you can't stand?"

"I'm pretty sure that's not how soulmarks work," Ruby said.

"Well, what if your match is someone… wrong?"

"You're using that word again," Ruby said.

"What if someone gets paired with… the wrong species?" Weiss said, hesitating only a moment.

"Human-faunus relationships are a thing, even I know that," said Ruby.

Every Atlesian voice in Weiss' head—they all sounded like Father—objected at once. "No. That's just _wrong_. Or what if your soulmark matches you with someone the wrong sex?"

That got Ruby's undivided attention. "This had better not be about my sister," she growled.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Please, the less I think about your sister, the better." No doubt, at this very moment, Yang and Blake were off somewhere together, sappy and unbearable. Surely they were gallivanting. Cavorting. Maybe even _frolicking_. It made Weiss nauseous just to think of it.

(The truth would have sorely disappointed Weiss' fevered imagination. In fact, Yang was working on her motorcycle, while Blake read a book in the corner of the garage. They were close without being together—or, perhaps, together without being close. Knowing each other was present was enough. At that moment, anyway. It had only been a week.)

"The point," Weiss continued, "is that, if my soulmate were a woman, there could be no natural heir to the Schnee Dust Company after me, and that would create all sorts of problems. Better that I never know."

"…better for who?"

Weiss' eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

Ruby seemed to have become even smaller than usual, but she looked up at Weiss all the same. "I said, better for who? Isn't that just other people making things easier for themselves, without asking your permission? You were a baby."

"Well…" said Weiss, hesitating.

"Don't you hate it when other people choose for you?"

"Of course I do," Weiss said, smart as a whip. "Who doesn't?"

Ruby, seeming to have run out of words, shrugged and pointed at Weiss' prosthetic.

That hit too close to home. Weiss had no defense, no way to parry, so she chose to counter-attack instead. "Well, I say soulmarks choose for people!" she said, folding her arms before her. "Who out there thinks _they_ can choose _my_ perfect partner?"

Ruby looked down. "I would have appreciated the help."

That made Weiss stall out. "'Would have'?"

The younger girl fidgeted.

Weiss could sympathize with someone not wanting to share personal details. Secrets were currency in Atlas. Privacy was self-preservation. "Never mind. You don't have to tell me. It's fine."

"But I want to," said Ruby, catching Weiss off-guard yet again. She brought her hands in front of her and, very slowly, drew off her gloves. Then she rolled up her long sleeves. Then she rotated her now-bare forearms.

Her right forearm was blank.

"My soulmark is gone," she said in a whisper. "Either my soulmate is dead, or something happened to their soulmark—something like what happened to yours, maybe. I'll never know." She sniffed; her hand flopped to her side. "It would have been nice."

Weiss swallowed the entirely unwelcome wave of sympathy that rose in her at the sight. "You don't need a crutch like that, anyway," she said.

"Huh?" snuffled Ruby.

Weiss found it hard to locate the words. Showing faith in others was… unnatural. "I just think that, if there's one person equipped to find their soulmate through sheer persistence, it might be you."

Ruby tried for a smile. "That was almost a compliment. Are you feeling alright?"

Weiss knew Ruby was just trying to get a reaction, and that just increased her indignation. "Don't get used to it, you dolt!"

There was a fluttering of lips before Ruby's face fell. "It was really nice to hear you say it, though. I… never thought I was very good at making friends."

"You're not going to guilt me into being your friend," Weiss said. She resented that emotion. Her father wielded the guilt cudgel without hesitation or remorse.

"Oh, no, of course not!" said Ruby hastily. "I wasn't trying to! I was just, you know, saying."

Weiss arched an eyebrow.

"It was a nasty thought," Ruby went on, filling the void Weiss left. "Some people say that, if you lose your soulmark, you'll be lonely forever."

Weiss tried to school her reaction. It wasn't easy.

_Mirror, mirror, who's the loneliest of all?_

The song she'd written for herself, that she'd never performed for an audience—ironic, now that she thought about it…

She'd never been more conscious of her prosthetic than at that moment.

"But I never believed that," Ruby went on, intruding on Weiss' thoughts. "Like you and me. I believe we can still be friends. I mean, we're both missing our soulmarks, so we've got something in common, right?"

Weiss swallowed firmly. "I… suppose," she allowed.

Then Ruby's face lit up. "Oh, that's it!"

"What?" said Weiss, off balance.

"We'll make a promise to each other," Ruby said. "No, more than a promise. We'll _pinky-swear_."

"Pinky-swear? Seriously? Are you six?"

"Six plus nine, I thought you were supposed to be good at math." Ruby clasped her hands together. "We'll help each other find our soulmates!"

Weiss hadn't thought that her disbelief could be any more intense but, like in so many other ways, Ruby was proving her wrong. "You can't be serious right now."

"Sure I am!" said Ruby. "We'll do it alongside our Huntress work. We're partners. That's like wingwomen, right?"

"No," said Weiss, but if Ruby heard her, she gave no sign.

"We'll fight grimm by day, search for love by night," Ruby went on. "If you think about it, we can eliminate a lot of candidates right off the bat, 'cause we're only looking for other people with no soulmarks."

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose. "I don't think you have any idea the magnitude of what you're suggesting."

Ruby returned a blank expression.

"First," said Weiss, counting off on her fingers, "you're assuming we'll still be a team after Beacon, and, frankly, I put extremely low odds on that. Second, you're assuming a mission profile that takes us different places, but also leaves us plenty of time to meet people wherever we go. Third, you're assuming we can meet even a fraction of the people on this planet. There are millions and millions. Even if only, I don't know, five percent of them are missing soulmarks, that's still more people than we could meet in a lifetime!"

Ruby's smile was huge and infectious.

"Why do you look like that?" Weiss demanded.

"You're arguing about it," the younger girl said merrily. "That means you're thinking about it."

That was a jolt along Weiss' spine. "Am not," she protested.

Ruby paid no attention to that. "Here's my rebuttal. First, _of course_ we'll be on a team after Beacon. Maybe my sister and Blake do their own thing, but we stick together for sure. We're Huntresses to help people, right? We can help people better as a team, _and_ we'll be helping each other. That's, like, squaring the helping!"

"I thought you were supposed to be good at math," Weiss accused right back.

"Bee, a Huntress sets her own schedule. We can choose the right mission profile to support our other mission."

Weiss' fist tightened until the grind of metal-on-metal was audible. "Where do you get off thinking you can say what I do with my future?"

"I'm not telling you what to do," said Ruby. "I'm saying you'll want to, because we're friends, and it'll help you, and you want it."

Weiss scoffed hollowly. "As if!"

Ruby raised three fingers. "And, even if there are a lot of people in the world, it could be so much worse. Can you imagine a world where no one had soulmarks? How would people find their soulmates without them?"

"I don't think they would," said Weiss, trying to find traction. "As a matter of probability, the odds are against you finding your soulmate even _with_ a soulmark. Thousands-to-one or worse, as I recall. Without it… I guess people just try to find someone close, and hope for the best?"

Ruby looked triumphant. "Well, that's the best part of this plan! The more people you meet, the better your odds of finding your close-enough person! _And_ you get to choose this way! How about that?"

Weiss held up one finger towards Ruby while placing her other hand over her face. She had to limit competing input to try and put herself back in order.

Things _changed_ when Ruby spoke. It felt like being in a landslide.

"This 'plan' of yours… no, I won't dignify it with that word. It's not a plan. This idea, this _notion_ , is barely even a fantasy. It's one part romanticism, one part hopeless optimism, one part groundless self-confidence, and zero parts thinking ahead."

Ruby's frown was somehow both adorable and aggravating. "Are you complimenting me again?"

"NO!"

"Oh." She sagged slightly. "Oh."

Weiss had the uncomfortable feeling that she'd just kicked a puppy.

Before she could try to make up for it, Ruby seemed to regather herself. "Just while we're at Beacon, then," she said, as if that were a complete thought.

The world was going unsteady again. "What?"

"I suppose it is kinda reckless to plan for after Beacon," Ruby admitted. "Who knows what the world will be like then? So let's just plan for the next four years. In the next four years, we'll do everything we can to help each other find our soulmates. How does that sound?"

Weiss closed her eyes. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"Nope! Us mark-less have to stick together." She paused. "I mean, you don't _want_ to be alone, do you?"

_Who's the loneliest of all…_

"No," said Weiss.

"Then let me help you."

Weiss looked at Ruby. The younger girl's eyes were shining bright with sincerity.

Weiss broke the gaze and looked upwards. "Fine," she sighed.

"Alright!" said Ruby, pumping her fist. "Mission accepted!"

"I already have regrets."

"Come on," said Ruby, "this'll be great! Hey, wouldn't it be funny if we're soulmates with each other?"

That put Weiss' brain on tilt. "No, it wouldn't! Not even a little!"

"I mean," said Ruby looking at her forearm, "it's not like you can prove we're not…"

"You being my soulmate is my actual worst-case scenario."

Ruby's expression was clearly teasing now. "When you said that, I felt that. _In my feels_."

"Ruby Rose, say another word on this topic, and I will replace your weapon oil with glue."

The threat struck home. "You wouldn't dare!"

Weiss' eyes flashed. "Try me."

Ruby laughed. "That's fine. I don't actually think I'm your soulmate."

"Good," said Weiss firmly.

"But I am your bestie."

A horrible thought came over Weiss, one that chilled even the infamous Ice Queen. "Did you talk about all this—did you raise the possibility of me being your soulmate—just to make being best friends look better by comparison?!"

Ruby smiled.


End file.
